Today’s Zaman , Turkey
Dec 23 2011
1915, new ethics and new paradigm
MARKAR ESAYAN
It happened as expected. The National Assembly, the lower house of the
French parliament, passed a bill that proposes to penalize denying
that the 1915 killings of Armenians in Turkey was genocide.
Yet the process is not finished yet. The bill will be discussed in the
upper house of the parliament, the Senate, on Jan. 22. If the Senate
endorses it as well, it will be sent to the president to approve. It
will enter into force if it is ratified by the president.
If this happens, anyone who denies that the 1915 Armenian massacres,
which were officially recognized as genocide in 2001 in France, amount
to genocide may be sentenced to up to one year in prison and fined
45,000 euros.
I had previously noted that in principle, and irrespective of its
content and subject matter, I don’t think this bill is a right move.
According to my notion of what a democratic mentality is, no thought,
view or opinion that does not promote violence, hatred or racism, or
expression should be punishable. In its decision concerning a case of
a British publisher, Richard Handyside, in 1976, the European Court of
Human Rights (ECtHR) stressed that unfavored, disagreeable, shocking
or frustrating ideas deserve protection as they are not accepted or
adopted by society. Actually, any idea that is internalized by society
does not need any protection.
After the French National Assembly passed the bill in question, Turkey
reacted very harshly. It found the decision unacceptable. Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an announced an eight-item package of heavy
measures. Furthermore, he suggested that this package was only the
first stage of Turkey’s future measures. Turkey hopes the measures it
announced will work and that the bill will be declined by the French
Senate. But if the bill enters into force, other measures will be
announced. The prime minister said the following concerning these
measures:
`Now, we are naturally reviewing our relations with France. We will
implement our measures depending on how France acts in the future. We
are recalling our ambassador in Paris to Ankara for consultations. As
of now, we are canceling bilateral level political, economic and
military activities, such as seminars and training courses. We will
not cooperate with France in the European Union’s twinning projects.
We are suspending all political consultations with France. Bilateral
military cooperation and joint maneuvers are canceled as of now. We
are halting the practice of giving collective permission to military
flights for an entire year and introducing a case-by-case practice. As
of today, we are declining the [French] military warships’ request to
visit our ports. We will not attend the Turkey-France Economic Project
meeting, planned to be held in January 2012 under to co-chairmanship
of economy ministers of the two countries.’
First, France had already recognized 1915 as genocide in 2001. The
current bill that criminalizes its denial is a necessary extension
under French law. Likewise, as per the Gayssot Act that is in force in
France, it is a crime to deny the Holocaust. Having recognized the
Armenian genocide, France was expected to pass this bill as well. In
other words, Turkey should have raised its objections against the 2001
law in the first place.
True, we raised hell when the first bill was enacted in 2001. Yet,
despite all our measures, there was a 30-percent boom in trade with
France. Later, we all forgot about it. France is neither the first nor
the last. There are currently 30 countries that officially recognize
the 1915 incidents as genocide. These include our neighbors, Greece
and Russia, and major countries like Poland, Sweden, Belgium, Italy,
Canada, Argentina and Switzerland, most of which are members of the
EU, which we are trying to become a member a. Now, we are on the verge
of starting a war with France. From the policy of zero problems with
neighbors, we have moved to the brink of severing our ties with
France, after doing so with Syria, Armenia and Israel.
Some claim that the nearing French presidential elections played a
role in the passing of the bill. This, I think, keeps us from seeing
the whole picture and the real danger. French President Nicholas
Sarkozy may be a low-caliber politician, but there are not only his
electoral considerations behind this bill move. He has other plans,
too.
Turkey is giving its already overdosed reactions in exactly the way
Sarkozy would want it to do. The French president’s intention is to
make everyone see how Turkey proves his thesis, i.e. that Turkey is an
eastern and anti-democratic country incompatible with European values.
In the final analysis, France has passed a bill that will be
applicable only in France, but Turkey, as a country that has now grown
big and is being feared by many, is pressing against this country with
all its power and might. Turkey is perfectly right in its reaction,
but is it rational to burn all bridges? Although France has passed the
said bill as a humiliation of, and great injustice to, its own
citizens, Turkey is reacting to it as if it is to be implemented in
Turkey. And this adds credence to Sarkozy’s thesis that Turkey will
never be a Western democracy. This overblown reactionary attitude is
portraying Turkey as a petulant country that has a complex about the
1915 incidents.
Indeed, a Financial Times editorial claimed that Turkey’s reactions to
the bill went beyond natural lobbying efforts and had turned into an
intimidation policy. You can be sure that France will mobilize more
support over time. And accusations against Turkey as a threatening
country will stockpile as well. This is not a rational attitude.
Instead, we should have protested the bill and sent a diplomatic note
to France. That’s all. We cannot decide how a country’s parliament
makes its decisions. And we cannot do this to as influential a country
as France. Even if you have the power to implement those sanctions,
they will backfire and snowball you.
It is true that our antipathy against Sarkozy made us dose our
reactions to the excess. But states cannot be governed by
sentimentality. Good statesmen should be cool-headed and rational.
Turkey has never managed to develop the correct policy about this 1915
matter. This is because we are still parroting the old state’s
paradigm. We have a prime minister who was bold enough to offer an
apology about the Dersim massacre, but when it comes to the 1915
incidents, the single party regime’s mentality rears its ugly head.
Steering toward a correct paradigm
I know that this matter is not a walk in the park, but we have to
steer toward the correct paradigm at some point. First of all, if you
have a glass house, don’t throw stones. Our legal system still has
laws that are similar to the prohibitionist law France passed about
but a single matter. Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) is
only one of them. Turkey should get rid of these prohibitionist
articles not because others want us to do so or this is what our EU
bid entails, but because this is what we really need. Only four years
have passed since Hrant Dink was killed in a racist murder after he
was tried under Article 301, and he became the bull’s eye during these
trials. And no progress is being made about the trial concerning his
murder. The European Court of Human Rights found Turkey in violation
of the European Convention on Human Rights in various cases, including
Taner Akçam v. Turkey, in which the Strasbourg court held that Turkey
had interfered in freedom of thought and science by bringing legal
actions against Taner Akçam, who had described the 1915 incidents as
genocide.
This is what I mean when I refer to a paradigm change. I am talking
about a new set of ethics. Let France pass these anti-democratic laws,
thinking their citizens deserve them. Let Armenia refuse to join
Turkey’s commission of historians. But let us do amongst ourselves
what is right and let us tidy our own house. We claim that our
archives are open, but we are not telling the truth. The General Staff
Archives for Military History and the Strategic Studies Center (ATASE)
are still closed. There is no use blocking the process, saying, `You
open yours first, then I’ll open mine.’ Moreover, the big sorrow
suffered in 1915 is our common sorrow. It is to shame ourselves to
make it food for political moves in foreign parliaments. We confronted
our past regarding Dersim and we lost nothing by doing so. In the same
way, we should not defend the crimes against humanity committed by the
pro-Community of Union and Progress (CUP) murderers who caused all
communities in the empire, not only Armenians, to suffer in 1915 —
who caused millions of people to die in the World War I by affiliating
the empire with Germany and who caused 90,000 Ottoman soldiers to
freeze to death in SarıkamıÅ?.
Our ancestors are not Enver Pasha, Talat Pasha or Cemal Pasha. Our
ancestors do not include Diyarbakır Governor Dr. Mehmet ReÅ?it, who
said when he was criticized for allowing Armenians to be killed
despite being a physician that his Turkishness comes before the
Hippocratic Oath. Our ancestors are Ankara Governor Hasan Mazhar Bey,
who said, `I can’t do it as I am not a bandit’ when he was order to
commit a massacre; Konya Governor Celal Bey, who refused to comply
with the forced migration decision; Muslim scholar of Konya Kütahya
Governor Faik Aliler, who refused to send Armenians into forced
migration and who removed the police chief who told Armenians to `be
Muslims or be killed’; and Kastamonu Governor ReÅ?it Pasha and Basra
Governor Ferit Bey, who exhibited similar attitudes.
Most of these dignified people were either removed from office or
killed by pro-CUP individuals.
This is our common sorrow, and it is not something for political abuse
by Sarkozy and the like. This is what I mean by a new set of ethics.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-266585-1915-new-ethics-and-new-paradigm.html